Gambit1138: April 21April 28
by ju-on1190
Summary: In April 2005, a 14yearold by the name of Jason Schaeffer came into contact with the tape. Based on the posts he wrote on an internet message board dealing with the tape pheonomena, his story is published for the first time in harrowing and chilling detai
1. View Point

April 21, 2005

9:30 PM.

A boy sat in front of his computer, an apathetic look on his pale face. This wasn't different for him- he did this almost every night.

Jason Schaeffer was of average height, with brown hair and steely blue eyes, which widened with expectation every time he received something out of the ordinary.

He looked over to his living room table, an unmarked VHS laying on the aging wood surface. A label on it read "COPY".

He got up from his office chair, walking with dread towards the tape. He picked it up, his hands shaking, and walked over to the VCR. _"It can't be real…it's just another urban legend._" He laughed at this thought, wondering how many people have thought the same thing about this tape.

He pushed the tape in, turned on the TV, and pressed play.

An amalgam of images raced through his mind: a ring of light…bloody water…a woman combing her hair…a moving body bag…what looked like an intestine being viscerally ripped from someone's bleeding mouth…all ending with a well in a blue forest, a hand barely protruding from it.

Static.

Jason felt different somehow…like something was moving inside him, waiting to be born.

He shrugged it off, thinking it to be just a gross film, probably made by one of the kids at school…

Then the phone rang.

Jason froze, thinking they'd just go away. The rings persisted. He got up and ran to the kitchen, picking up the receiver. He put it to his ear, hoping it wasn't true. It couldn't be.

"_Seven days." _A girl's voice echoed through his mind, disconnecting as she finished.

9:32 PM.


	2. Day 1

DAY 1- 9:24 AM.

Jason woke up with hesitation on April 22. The first thing he registered in his mind was that his eyes (and the surrounding area) were slightly wet. He had been crying in his sleep.

But why? He had no recollection of dreaming that night…it was like the video was a painkiller to the mind, impaling any subconscious thought in its sight.

11:15 AM

He got out of his bed, yawned, and started towards the kitchen. His parents were in Chicago, but that didn't mean he couldn't fend for himself every now and then.

Tired, he sluggishly made himself a bowl of cereal and sat down at the table. He plucked the spoon into his mouth, and immediately spat out the cereal. The spoon clattered on the linoleum floor. He got up and checked the expiration date on the milk. It was brand new.

"Must be labeled wrong…" he muttered to himself as he scooped the cereal into the trash.

When he was finished, he walked into the living room and switched on the TV. Static is what he got.

Jason flipped to the next channel, dismissing it as nothing.

Static.

He clicked the channel button repeatedly, only with the same results.

"The cable's out." He muttered.

Great. Just great.

2:00 PM

He walked into his room and slipped off his pajamas, grabbing whatever clothes he had lying around.

A clicking whirr caught his attention: his laptop, lying on a small table near his window, had turned on. A cursor on the screen flashed slowly.

Jason walked closer, curious about how his laptop could do such a thing.

Words exploded onto the screen, causing him to reel back.

SEA

WATER

WATER

ANGELS

ANGELS

ANGELS

WATER

WATER

Then the laptop shut off as if nothing had happened. Jason helped himself up and walked towards the plug: it was vacant from its socket.

Shaking his head, he exited his bedroom fully dressed and grabbed a key lying on the kitchen table. He was gonna take a walk.

You could say that the neighborhood Jason lived in was a good one. There were nice people, who did everyday things in their everyday houses. This didn't matter to Jason at all. What mattered to him was that there was leg room, a place to eat and sleep, and electrical outlets.

Jason started down the street and noticed it was cloudy. Which was weird, because there was supposed to be sunshine the entire week.

"_Guess the weatherman was wrong."_ He thought.

As he turned the next corner, he realized something. There were neither cars nor people out. The April air was grimly silent; no birds were singing. The only animals out in the open were dogs. Lots and lots of dogs. All the dogs were barking at him; they could sense things others couldn't.

The air got colder. Jason took this as a sign and started jogging back home.

* * *

Jason felt strangely exhausted when he got home. He stumbled into his bedroom, clutched the bed sheets, and passed out on the floor.

* * *

He was in a forest…he was sure of that. The trees were white as snow, slightly blending in with the icy blue grass that grew beneath his feet. 

He felt compelled to go farther. He broke into a run. He could see somebody in the clearing ahead. He reached out his hands and tried to scream, "Wait!" but his voice wasn't there.

The clearing was closer now. He could see the cloudy sunlight casting rays on the dew. He broke through the last bits of trees and saw what was before him. He tried to stop his feet, but they kept moving. He turned his head to see a young girl in a tattered and muddy white dress, her face covered in her long, greasy black hair. Her arms rose…and he was pushed off the cliff towards the ocean rocks below.

* * *

Jason woke with a start, covered in sweat. He forced himself to regulate his breathing, his heart pounding for release. 

He wiped his forehead with his bed sheet and crawled quickly to his laptop. He plugged it in and started it up.

He went to Google and did a search. He couldn't be the only one experiencing this. A smattering of results came up, but only one piqued his interest. The site was RINGS Communities, and it had a forum.

He created an account under Gambit1138, made a topic, and began to write.


	3. Day 2

DAY 2

April 23 was a foggy day. The windows outside Jason's home were veiled in mist, hiding what were Jason's waking moments to the outside world.

His eyelids fluttered open, his vision blurry from sleep. A figure in a tattered white dress stood in front of his bed, her eyes hidden behind her grimy black hair.

Jason shot upright, looking towards the figure. She was gone, retreating to the darkness of his mind.

He got up from bed and started towards his laptop. He switched it on and loaded up RINGS Communities. Already he had 8 replies, mainly from users with names like "WellDeadGirl" and "Kasai". He sighed with relief, knowing he wasn't alone in…this.

He switched off the laptop and walked towards the kitchen, sticking with toast and jam for breakfast. Realizing he was able to eat without "interruption", he downed four slices of toast.

The doorbell rang. Jason scrambled to get clothes on and afterwards opened the door. His two project partners, Miranda and Erin, walked through the door.

--

The project in question has been lost to posterity, so we can only speculate what went on. From Jason's original posts, he had met with Erin later and told her what had been going on. She had, jokingly, become his tail.

--

When they had left, Samara stood in the darkness beyond the mirror in Jason's hallway, biding her time.

--

It was 3:00 PM when he noticed the well in his backyard. The well was green with grime and age, and moss had become substitute cement for the oval stones. He shut the curtains, thinking it was just his imagination. The tape was no imagination.

The well stayed.

--

He logged on to RINGS later that night, and wrote what he had seen. Maybe it was the norm for this to happen. It would be over soon.

He was wrong.

--


	4. Day 3

Day 3

He couldn't remember much about what happened that day. Fragments drifted to and fro in his mind, bringing the occasional thought to light. What he could remember was this…

He looked in the kitchen pantry and the food looked like little moving brains. Maggots, slimy and disgusting, crawled all over his food. He let out a shout of surprise and repulsion and fell backwards. A knife on the counter fell on his hand, slicing off his fingers. His digits excreted maggots, covered in blood. More maggots spewed from his hands. Jason looked down, and his hands were normal. The pantry door was shut. He didn't want to look in there anymore.

He ran to the bathroom and vomited.

---

The house was cold, but the thermostat read 76 degrees. Jason shivered. He could see his breath condensate into the air. He moved towards the front door to get out, and turned the lock. It wouldn't turn. No matter how hard he tried, it wouldn't turn.

After what seemed like hours, the door flung open, missing his face by almost an inch. The light was so bright, it seemed unnatural. He shut the door, the afterimage burned into his eyes. He walked into the hall, rubbing his eyes.

The lock clicked behind him.

---

He was in the bathroom again. He didn't know what time it was. What mattered was that he was dirty. He felt dirty. The dirt of whatever was out there was in his skin. Water would purify him. He put the stopper into the bathtub in front of him and turned on the water.

Once it was full, he stopped the faucet and sat down on the toilet.

Drops of black, murky water dripped into the bathtub, dying it a sickening color.

Jason moved towards the basket of magazines to read a little something, and froze. A burning sensation started on his arm and slowly registered in his brain. His neck stiffened. He slowly turned his head to look at his arm.

The water in the bathtub was oozy brown, emitting a stench like dead animals and moldy cheese.

Someone occupied the bathtub. It was a little girl in a tattered white dress, her black hair covering her face. Her decomposing arm clutched onto his, her nail-less fingers spindly grinding into his skin.

He jerked his hand back, screaming in pain and terror. His mind was flooded with images…terrible images filled with pain, suffering, death.

All his fears were brought to life in his head in that one second before he landed on the bathroom tile and was knocked unconscious.

She crawled from the bathroom and touched his head with what could be adoration. She continued over his body and to the hall, where she climbed into the mirror in the hall, and hid out of view in the darkness.


	5. Day 4

Day 4- April 25, 2005

Jason groggily woke up on the bathroom floor just past midnight and, holding onto the vanity, pushed himself up to check his head.

There was a bruise on his temple (the result of the fall) and a burn on his right arm, shaped like a child's hand with long, spindly fingers.

He let out a tired sigh and shuffled to his bedroom and into his warm bed.

The temperature began to drop as she entered the room, walking toward the sleeping Jason.

---

Something was squirming all over his body. Jason didn't want to look. It crawled all over his hands, his chest, all over. He pulled the blanket over…

Maggots, some quasi-flies already, crawled all over his body. Squirming, slithering…

He rolled out of bed, screaming hysterically. In his fit, he looked at the bedroom wall, covered in scratch marks, some of them bloody.

---

The phone rang. Jason ran for it, desperate for contact with another human being.

He raised the handle to his ear.

"Hello?"

"It's Erin."

"Erin, don't hang up. Remember that tape thing? I need you to watch it—"

"It's about that. I've seen your movies and I've decided I'm not gonna see this one."

Jason froze. His heart slowed to the point of death.

"Why are you deciding this now?"

"You always have these cheap jokes. I'm tired of being the butt of them."

"Erin…please…DON'T HANG UP."

A click came through the phone.

Erin had hung up.

---

Jason, frustrated, took a walk again, having to fuss with the sticking locks, again.

The sun was completely blotted out by the bleak clouds above. No birds sang. The dogs were in their houses. The air itself seemed dead in the April air.

Jason was the only one on the street. There were no cars. No children played in the park he passed by.

He felt a breath on his neck. It was cold and unforgiving.

He turned to see her.

Jason thought it couldn't be happening. As she started to shamble forward, he broke into a run.

She followed, coming faster.

He was sprinting now, turning into the street up ahead.

"No. Please." He whispered to himself, pleadingly.

He looked back and she wasn't there. He stopped, gasping for breath.

He turned back again and saw her. She grabbed onto his head and he felt like his brain had exploded. The mind cancer, he had called it, had come back again. He let out a scream, and he blacked out.

---

Now it was 9:30 PM. Jason was on his front doorstep. On his door, in spindly childlike writing, was:

Don't stop me. I'm already here.

---


	6. Day 5

Day 5- April 26, 2005

Jason couldn't go out there now. She was after him. Her and her minions.

He had crawled into his room (grabbing what edible food was left) and barred the door.

What he had to drink was Coke…the water was still bad.

The eyes. Staring at him. Always staring. Unblinking.

The only source of light in the room came from his computer screen, displaying the RINGS forum.

The well in the backyard was making the noises again. A scratching noise, followed by a wet slapping. Then there was the sound of rocks banging together and then silence.

Then it repeated.

Jason was furiously writing in a small school journal on his desk. The journal's pages were filled with eerie and disturbing reminders of the days past.

When he was finished with one page, he would take it and scan it into his laptop. When he had the entries for the past 7 days uploaded, he attached all of them to an email and sent it to the RINGS Webmaster.

don't try to stop me

i'm already here

two more days

that's coming soon

ring

ring

ring

ring

---

Jason had fallen asleep at his desk when the last drips of the message finished typing itself.

As he wrote it:

Woke up, found my laptop was on the site again. Funny thing is...I don't remember falling asleep. Like Blair Witch 2.

It's dark now. My door is locked. My windows are locked. Unplugged the TV and the phone. She can't get me.

I'll just wait.

and wait.

it won't stop.

Gambit1138


	7. Author's Note

Author's Note:

As you may notice, the story hasn't been updated in awhile. This is mainly due to school issues and the recent loss of the original Nensha forums where the basic story was posted.

There is a temp forum. However, all of the original posts are not on there and (may) never be on there. Keep in mind that might change.

Thanks to the people who took their time reading this creation of mine :)

Juon1190


End file.
